David Bruce Winery

David Bruce Winery has earned an international reputation throughout its nearly four decades for its dedication to producing the greatest pinot noir in the world. In pursuit of this goal, the winery has adhered to traditional European winemaking practices that trace their lineage back to the early pioneers of winemaking in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Santa Clara Valley. David Bruce Winery has also been at the forefront of efforts to develop innovative new methods that have changed the face of winemaking in California.

DirectionsFrom San Jose, follow Highway 880 (also known as Hwy. 17) through Los Gatos for about 2 miles. Exit at the Bear Creek Road turnoff, turn left at the stop sign and drive carefully up Bear Creek Road for 5 miles to the winery entrance marked on your right.

We begin making this wine with small, open top fermentations, with an emphasis on gentle handling, and bottle without fining or filtration. This wine exhibits forward dark cherry and berry tinged with hints of ripe loganberry. Rosemary, pepper and cedar accent the fruit without overpowering it, and the palate is rich and supple with ample but balanced tannins. While drinking well now, this wine should reward aging for a few years in a proper cellar.

We begin making this wine with small, open top fermentations, with an emphasis on gentle handling, and bottle without fining or filtration. This wine exhibits forward dark cherry and berry tinged with hints of ripe loganberry. Rosemary, pepper and cedar accent the fruit without overpowering it, and the palate is rich and supple with ample but balanced tannins. While drinking well now, this wine should reward aging for a few years in a proper cellar.

This Estate bottling marks the first time we have produced Chardonnay from our own vineyard since 1995 in the Santa Cruz Mountains. For a house that pride’s itself on Pinot Noir, it is exciting to
see Chardonnay, a genetic parent of Pinot, entering view again. This wine came
exclusively from the French Dijon clone 76, growing on rugged, northwestwardly
facing, sandstone slopes. The earliest of our 2001 Estate Chardonnay picks, crisp
acidity runs through this wine, lending both definition and freshness. Despite minimal oak influence, an impressive, “lees” character enriches and sweetens the palate.
White flower blossoms, perfume, pears and varied citrus are but a few of the
wonderful characters this wine reveals.

This wine brings together fruit from three different vineyards in the Santa Cruz
Mountains - our own Estate, R Bar R Ranch and Split Rail Vineyards. While within the same appellation, each site lends it’s own unique character to the blend. The Estate component comprises all of our late tropical fruits. Split Rail, several miles from David Bruce, lends earthiness and a light, smoky complexity to the wine.
R Bar R Ranch, one of the coolest sites we work with, produces a wine with bright citrus fruits and lively acidity, providing freshness and structure for the blend. The
finished wine strikes a nice balance between richness and freshness, with far greater complexity than any of its parts.

This is our fourth vintage of Sangiovese from Ranchita Canyon Vineyard in northern Paso Robles. We continue to marvel at the quality of this site, and the concentration and persistence of flavors it creates. The palate displays supple tannins softened by over 12 months in the barrel. THe wine drinks well now, yet has the acidity and structure to age quite gracefully for up to a decade if desired.

We have made more petite syrah from this vineyard over the last two decades than any other, and continue to marvel at the consistency and quality it displays. With a signature of blueberries in the nose, and hints of spices and mint beneath, the wine manages to be both powerful and refined.

Our Central Coast Petite Sirah is selected from vineyards primarily in the southern parts of Mondtery County and Paso Robles. This wine displays intense fruity aromas of raspberry and blueberry. Full, dense and fleshy texture with a long velvety finish.
Accolade: Best of Class/Gold in the 2005 Los Angeles County Fair "Wines of the World" Competition

While the Central Coast appellation covers a tremendous amount of territory and climates, the grapes for this particular wine originate from the warmer climates of Paso Robles and the neighbouring southern portion of Monterey County. Having made Petite Syrah for more than two decades, we feel that a warm climate such as Shandon in Paso Robles, and Hames Valley Monterey is necessary to create a full-bodied Petite that expresses opulent blueberry and blackberry fruit. Not to forget, of course, that wonderful aroma and flavor of white pepper spice that is associated with this particular varietal.

This wine comes from our Estate vineyard in the rugged mountains above Monterey Bay, and is the flagship of our Pinot Noirs. Our Estate wines are handled gently at all times, seldom pumped, and never fined or filtered, to maximize flavor and texture in the bottle. The 2000 vintage gave us wines with cherry fruit flavors from the Estate. Our lean, sandstone soils and 2100-foot elevation give a spicy mineral quality to the wine as well. Eighteen months in Burgundian coopered French Oak added subtle toast and smoke notes while softening and integrating the palate. This wine should reward aging for up to a decade in a proper cellar.

It is wonderful to see such consistent fruit quality every year in the Russian River Valley. This region has a well deserved reputation for Pinot Noirs with ripe flavors and supple palates. The 2002 vintage gave us glorious expression of rich red fruit, rose pedals, a hint of toasty oak and cinnamon spice from the sixteen months of aging in French and Hungarian oak. This produces a palate that is soft, full and richly textured with a long silky finish. Our gentle handling processes at David Bruce Winery have allowed us to preserve the intensity of fruit flavors associated with Pinot Noirs from this region and capture it in a bottle for all to enjoy.

This wine combines Pinot Noir from our Estate vineyard with that of four small vineyards in our rugged Santa Cruz Mountains. These sites benefit from the cooling influences of the Pacific Ocean extending our growing season, allowing Pinot Noir to achieve mature flavors without becoming overripe. Our Estate vineyard lends structure and a dense core of cherry fruit, while the grapes from Split Rail, Branciforte Creek, Kent Berry, and R Bar R Ranch add complixity. Fifteen months in French Oak has brought harmony to the blend, adding subtle toast, nutmeg, and vanilla to the finish. The interplay of fruit and spice flavors will pair nicely with foods ranging from simple grilled salmon to more exotic dishes, such as roast pork.

This vintage is a selection of superb Pinot Noir grapes primarily from the Sonoma Coast with compliments from the Alexander Valley and Russian River Valley regions. Our traditional winemaking techniques allow us to create wines that display great depth of varietal character, intense structure and ageability. This wine has an expression of black cherries coupled with lingering notes of cola, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove and a subtle hint of black pepper. The palate displays delicious dark red fruit flavors with a hint of vanilla on a long velvety finish. This well-structured wine will age for many years to come in a proper cellar.

Black cherry and red berried fruits, floral and earthy notes of these individual vineyards help to create a wine that is both bold and elegant.
Palate: A hint of nutmeg and vanilla from the French Oak and a wonderful mineral note commonplace to great Burgundies. It is bold, full, spicy with ample evidence of the David Bruce signature velvety tannins.

A substantial wine of foreword-fruit characteristics of black cherries, ripe plums, nutmeg and hints of citrus as well as floral aromas reminiscent of rose petals.
Palate: Full body with upfront fruits representing ripe plums, black cherries and nutmeg. Ready to drink now, would benefit from two to five years of cellaring age.

The Warneke Vineyard is located at the Southern end of the Alexander Valley near Chalk Hill. While it is very close to the Russian River Valley border, it is a bit more protected from the maritime influence. The warmer conditions render riper fruit, extra jammy quality and provide a solid tannic structure with a very textural mouth-feel.
Part of our Vineyard Designate Series, this wine exudes deep color and characters of blueberry, pepper, and earthiness with noticeable toasty oak aromas.

With this wine we took advantage to expand our horizons with Pinot Noir. After the fermentation vats were filled with grapes, a portion of the juice was removed. We kept this apart, gave it a cool fermentation of its own, and this wine is the result. With delicate floral aromas underscored by a hint of red cherries, and a palate that is crisp and light, this is a blush wine that can happily accompany seafood, cheese plates or light pasta dishes.

In 1968 I visited Dr. Alley at Davis because of my desire to produce a spicy, Rhone-style wine. Based on Dr. Alley's assurance that our Petite Syrah was Syrah, I commenced to work on Petite Syrah. Of course now we know that the parentage of Petite Syrah is Syrah and Peloursin. This explains the rather remarkable similarity of the black pepper spiciness of both of these wines. My tasting notes describe dark berries, herbal notes as well as earthiness. Also apparent are traces of vanilla and nutmeg. The palate is sturdy in structure and even so is already hinding of the David Bruce signature of velvety tannins with three or four years of cellaring.

The 2001 vintage marks our first bottling of a York Mountain appellation syrah. York Mountain is located next to the Templeton Gap, an east-west mountain pass in the west-side of 101, allows cool maritime breezes to moderate the temperature in this appelation and in doing so, it emphasizes the spicy, white pepper aromas and flavors we associate with syrah. This Kruse Vineyard syrah has a deep, dark, ripe cassis note that follows through on the palate and lingers there for a deliciously long time.

The Santa Cruz Mountains, known for its cool climate and lean sandy soils, helps retard the vigor of the Syrah vines grown in this appellation; and so, creating fruit with intense color and flavor. The cool climate helps to maintain the delicate, classic spiciness that define Syrah at its best. This wine shows a luscious, dense core of berry fruit enhanced by notes of violets, white pepper and dried herbs. All this combined with balanced acidity, supple and well rounded tannins, help to create a wonderful soft and velvety texture on the palate. These qualities will allow this wine to evolve nicely for years to come.

Tondre, a vegetable farmer in the Salinas Valley was wondering what to do with his land in the Santa Lucia Highlands. He noticed the proliferation of vineyards around his land, and a few of his friends who grew grapes in that area told him that his land would be ideally suited for pinot noir or chardonnay. So being a red wine drinker he decided to plant pinot. When we asked his son Joe, who now runs and manages the vineyard, why he called it a grapefield, he replied that his father had broccoli fields, lettuce fields and now grapefields.

David Bruce Winery has had a long history with Zinfandel and it has led us far and wide, searching for the best locale to procure Zinfandel grapes. During the early nineties we felt that Paso Robles was the best region to grow Zinfandel. Not just for the opulent raspberry fruit character, but also for its wonderful expression of black pepper spice that is commonly associated with this varietal. Two vineyards that achieves this remarkably well are Ranchita Canyon and Beato. Both of these sites express those characters in abundance. While Ranchita Canyon brings
elegance to the blend, Beato gives it its depth.